


Je n'ai qu'un seul et unique regret

by ScreechTheMighty



Series: Talk Some Sense To Me [3]
Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: Bullying Mention, F/M, Not Beta Read, Pining, Rated for swearing, References to previous fics, Self-Esteem Issues, extended headcanon, family death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-27 10:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20044633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScreechTheMighty/pseuds/ScreechTheMighty
Summary: I have one single and unique regret.| A short history of how Mirage came to be and how one woman screwed it all up, AKA a prolonged headcanon fic.





	Je n'ai qu'un seul et unique regret

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so, ~*~*storytime*~*~. I had started writing this fic as a follow-up to [i've walked with you once upon a dream](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19482652) (so, pining + angst, but from Elliott's POV). But I realized that this wasn't really working for that concept...but also that I liked what I had written and that it kind of works as an extended headcanon? So I decided to post it as a fun bonus story and then re-work on the original concept from scratch. Good news for all you angst-hungry readers, the new concept I have is going to be EVEN SADDER than this was going to be. (It will probably take a bit, since I want to finish up the next chapter of my ongoing Titanfall fic and I also have a deadline coming up in a few days that I need to see to. But it will be written.)

He got his heart broken for the first time when he was sixteen.

She was also his first girlfriend. Sometimes Elliott wondered if that had damaged him long-term. To be fair to Lucy, the death or disappearance of four different family members, the childhood bullying, and Youngest Child syndrome had also done a number on him, so it wasn’t just been her. But it _had_ left a mark.

It left a mark because it was evidence of his one, deepest and darkest fear: that he wasn’t good enough, wasn’t funny enough, wasn’t _likable._ Because after a solid year, Lucy broke up with him, citing a weak excuse about how it wasn’t him, it was her, how they wanted different things. The “different thing” she wanted was Kyle Manning, who had an intact family, a bigger farm, and no stutter. He wasn’t a dork, a loser, stupid, or anything of the insults people threw at Elliott for as long as he could remember.

The only good thing to come out of it was positive reinforcement from all three of his brothers. Mom had been great, as always, but there was something about hearing your olders brother call your ex a bitch that scabbed the wound over much faster.

“Seriously, man, you’re great. Guys like Kyle peak in high school. He’s gonna be stuck re-living his glory days forever. _You _have an actual life ahead of you.”

Henry had told him that. Elliott was pretty sure he remembered it so clearly because it was one of the last discussions they had before Henry joined the Militia, and subsequently went missing two years later. Elliott was also pretty sure it wasn’t true. He didn’t peak in high school, but that was because he’d never peaked at all.

He skated through high school, managed to cement his position as the lovable (if occasionally idiotic) class clown, had a short relationships that were so un-serious that they didn’t even break up, just stopped hanging out, and skated into trade school for an engineering career he wouldn’t end up having. He might have tried a more serious relationship in college, but…

Well, turns out, you go to Dionysisus and try shrooms on spring break _one time_ and flirt with a pumpkin-headed scarecrow because you thought it was a real woman _one time_ and suddenly you’re known as the pumpkin fucker and no one wants to date you.

Go fucking figure.

It probably didn’t help that Miles went missing around the same time. Hell, Elliott had only agreed to that stupid trip to distract him from how much he missed his brothers. He tried to smile through the pain, but some of it must have bled through.

He’d have to learn fast—especially after losing Chris. They moved to another Solace within a year of burying him. He and mom wanted to start over, and get away from that empty house and all the painful memories in it.

This also meant he could leave behind his reputation as Elliott Witt, nerd and pumpkin fucker. That and scoring a job at the bar did wonders for his reputation. Not just because he was the guy serving drinks (always the most popular guy in the room), but because it forced him to put on a persona. He liked to think of it was Mirage: Alpha Version. Funny. Charming. A real hit with the ladies. And, most importantly, not constantly struggling with the emotional equivalent of expecting a step and only finding air.

It worked to a certain extent—he did go on some dates, one and two-offs that never really got far but at least filled the time, and was generally well-liked. He kept tweaking his smile and his approach and learned magic on top of that, and after four years of hard work, he found himself in his second-ever long-term relationship.

Her real name was Susan, but everyone called her Teddy for reasons Elliott never learned. She was nice, chill kind of woman, had her shit together way more than he did. It was, in a lot of ways, a more stable relationship than that relationship with Lucy. It even lasted longer by half.

This time it wasn’t Elliott that ruined the relationship. It was Alpha Version Mirage. Turned out, if you spent enough time acting like you were there for a good time, not a long time, even if you never got further than kissing and periodically did shit like _ask if she wanted to meet your mom…_the other person in the relationship had a habit of thinking you were only there for a good time, not a long time. And that was what Teddy wanted. Periodic dinners, plenty of flirting, occasional cuddling, and a literal dance partner (not a metaphorical one, regardless of how many wink-wink comments people liked to give them).

He acted like he was fine with it because it sure beat being alone. But the longer the relationship went on, the more he found himself thinking that he wanted more out of it. Meeting his mom. More regular dates. Bringing up the fact that he was _totally fine_ with taking care of the kids if she wanted her own job. Bringing up that he wanted kids, _period_. None of these things were what Alpha Version Mirage would’ve wanted, so he kept his mouth shut.

But Teddy worked it out, because she wasn’t an idiot.

“I just feel like we want different things out of this,” she told him.

It was Lucy all over again. This time it stung worse; he had no brothers to comfort him, and no Kyle Manning that he could blame. Teddy was right. They _did_ want different things. He’d just been lying to the both of them.

If he were smart, he would’ve learned something from that. What actually happened was that he doubled down on Alpha Version Mirage and spent the next four and a half years skating in and out of dead end relationships that were either, again, so inconsequential that they never really broke up, or ended when they realized that he was a lot less charming when it wasn’t just dinner and drinks.

Despite the growing evidence that this wasn’t working, and the desperation that came with repeated failures, he kept clinging to the illusion. It hurt, yeah, it hurt like hell, but the memories of Lucy from High School and the endless insults and a long childhood of having no friends outside of his family members haunted him. Even what happened with Teddy haunted him, because some deep part of him took it as proof that Elliott Witt wasn’t worth sticking around for. So he kept honing his persona and hoped it would work out.

It didn’t work with getting him a serious and fulfilling relationship. But it did get him into Apex Legends, so he had that going for him. Elliott was hoping that maybe the allure of being a competitor would get him some interpersonal attention, along with the money and general fame.

It didn’t, not right away. But it did get him Wraith.

They actually met on his first day of competition, in a beginner’s match called King of the Hill. Top fifteen people to make it to a spot on the map got to enter the main completion with a reduced entry fee. The fact that it _was_ a free for all meant that he could make friends. First he befriended Pathfinder, a MRVN he’d had a run in with a few weeks ago when he’d been in the process of signing up. Then, he had a knife pointed at his throat by a terrifying woman who’d _clearly_ already stabbed someone with that knife.

Terrifying, yes. But also? Kind of pretty. He wasn’t going to lie about that. She looked like she hadn’t slept in a few weeks, but the intensity of her blue eyes and the stark contrast between her fair skin and jet black hair was striking. Of course, he wasn’t thinking about her looks when she was pointing a knife at him. Mostly he was thinking about the knife. It wasn’t until later, when he’d managed to talk her down and convince her to join his squad that he noticed these things. He didn’t dwell on them or anything, because he was still a little concerned that she might change her mind and stab him. But he _had_ noticed.

Physical attractiveness aside, the fact that she was willing to work with him and _incredibly_ good at fighting was almost more attractive. The three of them even kinda worked well together. Apparently, the world thought so, too, because the Powers That Be stuck them together in a squad for the main games. That meant they’d be getting to know each other well.

Or that was what he thought. In reality, what happened was that he got to know Pathfinder very well, very quickly. Pathfinder was a simple guy. He like high fives, zip-lining, winning, and was in the games to try and find his creator. He figured the publicity might catch the guy’s attention. Wraith, meanwhile, revealed basically nothing at first. Elliott worked out pretty quickly that she was looking for _something_ in the various terminals around King’s Canyon. The one time he asked, she only glared at him and walked away. He figured if he wanted to learn anything else about her, he’d have to learn by observation and _not_ opening his fat mouth.

The things he learned about Wraith over the next three to four months were as followed.

One: she favored assault rifles and knives. Her fighting style was very much based on stealth and ambush. That quickly became whole team’s strategy: hit them when they least expected it from angles only possible with the help of grappling hooks, phase shifting, and some serious misdirection. The people loved it.

Two: she hated most nut butters. She also seemed hesitant to try new foods outside of a rotating roster of the same meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Elliott managed to coax her into trying some of his food once. He’d made tamales, abuela’s recipe but of course not as good as hers. She’d seemed surprised by the fact that she liked them. (Her surprise had been kind of cute, actually.)

Three: she did _not _like casual touching. Elliott was fairly touchy as a person, but he also wasn’t stupid. He noticed the way she flinched or got closed off when he got too close or leaned on her shoulder during a group interview. He stopped touching her after that incident. Eventually, she stopped eying him warily whenever he walked over. Seeing her relax made the abundance of caution worth it.

Four: She was capable of smiling. The first time he got her to smile was by joking that Bloodhound could just be a bunch of ravens in people clothes and they’d never know. It had made her face light up in a way that threw him off for a solid ten seconds. (He never really recovered from the shock. In fact, he made a point to crack jokes around her for weeks, trying to make her smile again.)

Five: She didn’t have a ton of patience for Mirage. That was obvious to pretty much everyone. She saw right through him and Elliott kind of hated that. It was a bit frustrating to have his quips be returned with better quips that were definitely power moves to show she wasn’t falling for his flirty act (and she was _scary _good at comebacks). But he didn’t hate her. (He could never hate her.)

Six: For all her comebacks and moments of frustration, she was never _cruel. _She didn’t make fun of him when he had to sing around his stutter, for one. That entire match had been a shitshow; they’d won, but his hands wouldn’t stop shaking afterwards. He’d told her that he was fine. She must not have believed him, because she stuck a lot closer after that. She even didn’t make a big deal out of him falling asleep with his head on her shoulder. (He never told her, but he was grateful.)

Seven: If she was pretty when she smiled, she was even prettier when she laughed. The first time he heard it, she was actually laughing at something Pathfinder said. He didn’t remember what; Elliott was way too distracted by the laughing part to remember.

Eight: She wore her hair long, cut it herself, and also had no idea what hair care was. Actually, being in her room that night had been kind of eye-opening. It was so _sparse,_ so excessively tidy. Between that and the fact that he’d never seen her so fragile and open, Elliott started wondering if there was more to this story than he realized. (He didn’t ask, of course, because he knew she wouldn’t answer. But he did wonder.)

Nine: When his façade finally cracked, she didn’t reject him. He literally cried into her shoulder after mistaking some random for his maybe-dead, maybe-not older brother, and she hadn’t been weird about it. She had, instead, offered comfort he didn’t even know she was comfortable giving. She’d consoled him, never brought it up again, but treated him more gently for a few days after, even when he was an idiot.

Ten: She wasn’t just _pretty_. She was honestly beautiful.

The moment he caught himself thinking that was the moment Elliott knew he was _fucked_.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from "Nearly Witches (Ever Since We Met)" by Panic! at the Disco. I'm on tumblr @ screechthemighty. If you like Apex Legends, please consider playing Titanfall 2, it's a very good game and you can get it for like $10.


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